Embers and Echoes

Rain washed the last traces of blood from the slope.

By dawn, no banners remained. The Eclipsed Moon had withdrawn in ragged lines, carrying their wounded and leaving only shattered shields in the churned earth. Even the carrion crows waited at a distance, unsettled by the lingering currents that licked at the air.

Jin stood at the edge of the courtyard, watching the grey light creep over the valley. The Saber rested point-down in the mud beside him. Each breath drew the storm deeper into his marrow.

Integration: 93%.

Behind him, Daigo and Kasane worked in silence, gathering the few supplies that had survived the battle. Kasane's cloak was torn across the shoulder, revealing a line of bruises already darkening her skin. She ignored it.

Daigo paused to glance at Jin.

"Master… will they return?"

Jin did not look away from the horizon.

"Yes."

"When?"

"When they believe they have found something stronger than fear."

Daigo shivered.

"And what will you do?"

Jin turned at last. His eyes glimmered with faint threads of lightning.

"I will be ready."

Kasane straightened, resting her spear across her shoulders.

"Ready is not enough," she said.

"They will come with siege engines, with formations carved to contain you. The Moon has not been humbled like this in a generation. They will not accept it."

Jin inclined his head.

"I know."

Kasane studied him, her expression inscrutable.

"You are changing."

He met her gaze without flinching.

"Yes."

"Does it feel… like losing yourself?"

He considered the question.

"No."

"Then what?"

"Becoming."

Kasane grunted softly, as if that settled something in her mind.

"Then you'll need allies."

---

At midday, three more approached the ridge.

They did not come under a banner. No horns, no challenge. Simply three figures in travel-stained cloaks, their steps measured and unhurried. Kasane shifted her grip on the spear as they climbed the final stretch of the path.

Jin waited.

The leader—a woman barely past thirty, with hair bound in a long braid—halted a dozen paces away. She pushed back her hood, revealing dark eyes set in a pale, hawkish face.

"Jin of the Circuit?" she called.

"Yes."

She inclined her head.

"I am Shiori, daughter of the House of Falling Ash. These are my sworn kin."

Two more unhooded—one a lean man with a scarred lip, the other a stocky figure whose gaze flickered constantly over the ruined walls.

"We have come to offer terms," Shiori continued.

Kasane's jaw tightened.

"More terms?"

Shiori shook her head.

"Not the Moon's. Ours."

Jin studied her.

"You were not here yesterday."

"No," she admitted.

"We watched from the old pass. We saw what you did."

"And?"

Shiori lifted her chin.

"And we have no interest in dying for the Moon's pride."

Her gaze sharpened.

"But we have great interest in standing with the one who humiliated them."

Kasane's eyebrow lifted.

"You expect him to trust you?"

Shiori smiled faintly.

"No. I expect him to consider that no power rises alone."

Jin said nothing.

Integration: 94%.

---

Daigo edged closer, voice low.

"Master… House of Falling Ash is known. They controlled five provinces before the Moon drove them into exile."

Shiori's gaze flicked to the boy.

"Six," she corrected mildly.

Jin regarded her.

"And what would you ask in exchange for this allegiance?"

Her smile widened just enough to show the edge of her ambition.

"When you take the Crown of Resonance, the old orders will crumble. We would help you break them—and share in what comes after."

Kasane snorted softly.

"A mercenary cause."

Shiori did not deny it.

"All causes are mercenary, when stripped of poetry."

---

Jin considered her without speaking. The lightning within him had grown restless, a slow tide rising behind his thoughts. Each heartbeat carried a resonance he could almost taste.

At last, he inclined his head a fraction.

"I will not swear allegiance," he said quietly.

"But I will not refuse your aid."

Shiori's expression did not change, but something in her shoulders eased.

"Then you will have it."

She turned to her companions.

"Establish a perimeter. We will camp here tonight."

They moved without argument, their steps efficient.

Kasane watched them go.

"You just invited wolves into your hall."

Jin did not look at her.

"Better wolves than jackals."

---

That night, the storm broke at last. Stars returned, hard and cold between ragged clouds. Fires burned in sheltered corners of the courtyard as the new arrivals set up their tents.

Jin sat alone on the dais, the Saber across his knees. Sparks traced silent patterns along the steel.

Integration: 95%.

He could feel the threshold approaching—closer with every breath. Soon the Circuit would claim its final form.

And with it, whatever remained of his humanity.

Kasane approached from the shadows, her steps as silent as falling ash. She stopped at the edge of the platform.

"You haven't slept."

"I don't need to."

She tilted her head.

"You should pretend, at least. For Daigo's sake."

He looked past her to where the boy dozed by the embers.

"When this is finished," he said quietly,

"There will be no more pretending."

Kasane rested her spear against the edge of the dais and sat.

"For what it's worth," she said,

"I've seen many men reach for power. None ever held it so lightly."

He did not answer.

---

An hour before dawn, Daigo stirred and came to kneel at the foot of the dais.

"Master," he whispered.

Jin lifted his gaze.

"The Moon will return," Daigo said.

"Yes."

"Then… will you leave this place?"

Jin studied him.

"Would you follow?"

Daigo swallowed.

"Yes."

Kasane's voice was low behind him.

"And if he becomes something no longer bound by the old oaths?"

Daigo did not look back.

"Then I will find new ones."

Jin watched the boy's face, the thin, fierce defiance in it. For an instant, something warmer than the storm flickered in his chest.

Then it was gone.

---

At dawn, the scouts returned.

Shiori met Jin at the courtyard's edge. Her breath steamed in the cold.

"Two columns," she reported.

"One from the southern pass, another from the east. Five hundred men, siege weapons, and a vanguard of cultivated adepts."

Kasane sighed.

"They mean to end this."

Jin looked to the east, where the first glint of armor crawled over the ridgeline.

"Then we will let them try."

Shiori studied him, her dark eyes assessing.

"Do you know how close you are to completion?"

He closed his eyes.

"Ninety-six percent."

Her throat worked.

"And when you reach a hundred?"

Jin turned back to the valley.

"Then the world will remember why it feared the Circuit."

---

When the first horns sounded, the defenders were already in position. Shiori's kin lined the breached walls, bows notched. Kasane stood at Jin's left, spear planted in the churned mud.

Daigo crouched behind a stack of crates, clutching the last talisman.

And Jin…

Jin simply waited.

The first siege engine crawled into view—a wheeled monstrosity of iron and wood, its frame bristling with coiled glyphs.

"Breaker Engine," Shiori murmured.

"Built to breach fortress walls. Or men like you."

Jin did not blink.

"Then let it try."

---

As the Moon's ranks fanned out across the slope, Isayo appeared among them, her black armor newly repaired. She raised her sword in silent salute.

Jin inclined his head.

Their eyes met—hers filled with weary conviction, his lit by the slow, inexorable glow of the Circuit.

Integration: 97%.

The siege engine's runes pulsed. A low hum crawled across the stones.

"Kasane," Jin said.

She lifted her spear.

"Yes?"

"When this begins… protect the boy."

Her jaw tightened.

"And you?"

He lifted the Saber, lightning gathering in silent promise.

"I will finish what I began."

---

The Breaker Engine spat a lanc

e of violet energy that tore across the courtyard. The impact split the dais in a plume of shattered stone.

But when the dust cleared, Jin still stood.

Unmoving.

Unbroken.

The lightning flared across his body, weaving into a lattice so bright it outshone the dawn.

Integration: 98%.

He raised the Saber.

And stepped into the storm.